7.8
It’s fully dark by the time they reach the sign for the motel, and Landis turns into the lazily winding driveway, slowly and carefully rolling up into the parking lot. Walker insisted that they take his car this time, so that they wouldn’t be recognized right away, but Landis is fairly sure that the orange convertible is going to stick out like a sore thumb even with the top up to conceal its occupants. He backs carefully into a parking spot outside of the twenty-four hour convenience store, trusting the bad angle and the slight overhang of the front doors’ awning to conceal them from Jenny’s watchful eye, if she does happen to be on the roof.
“Be right back,” Jeremy promises, and lifts up and out of the back seat without another sound.
Landis unhooks his seatbelt with a soft click, prompting Walker to do the same, and twists the key in the ignition, effectively shutting off all the convertible’s lights. He looks out over the lot - the neon signs of all four businesses are still on, but there are less cars than there were this afternoon. It’s likely that a lot of staff working the day shift have gone home, or a lot of motel-dwellers hit the road between then and now.
“Are you going to be okay?” he asks, glancing over towards the passenger’s seat.
Walker is slumped against the window, but doesn’t otherwise look too bad. He gives Landis a double thumbs up. “Just peachy.”
“You shouldn’t have to draw fire for long,” Naberius comments from the back seat. “As soon as you’ve distracted all of the mercenaries, I will transport myself and Landis inside the motel room, and then back out to the car once we have Austin. It should be less than a minute before we can make our getaway.”
“Assuming everything goes well,” Walker says. “Which, judging by how it went last time -”
“Motel roof,” Jeremy interrupts, sticking himself through the top of the convertible up to his shoulders. “She’s on the roof of the second story, with a gun. The other two are inside the room, watching TV. Austin’s awake, but he’s still tied up and gagged.”
“You checked the bathroom?” Landis asks, just to be sure. Jeremy rolls his eyes.
“Yeah. It’s empty.”
“Jeremy says Jenny’s on the roof, and the other two are in the room,” Landis says. He points at the motel through the windshield, at the room just on the corner. The shades of the small window next to the door are drawn, but even across the parking lot, it’s easy to see the light shining through. “Room 103. Nab, do you think you can get us in there?”
“I’ve teleported to tougher spots,” Naberius says confidently.
“Right,” Walker says, and pops open the door on his side of the car. “Let’s do this thing.”
Landis watches silently as Walker crosses the parking lot in long, purposeful strides, closing the distance between the car and the motel in no more than a minute. Walker stops close to 103, but not so close that the second story overhang would shield him from Jenny’s view, and stands very still. Maybe he says something, but he’s too far away to hear.
“What’s he doing?” Jeremy asks.
Landis opens his mouth to respond, and it’s exactly then that Walker starts to levitate. At first, it seems like an optical illusion - Walker’s feet a few inches off the ground, easily the sort of height you could get with a jump. But he hangs there, and then starts rising even higher. Soon enough, his head is level with the second story walkway of the motel, and Landis can hear him shouting something, probably a challenge to Jenny, or the two men with her.
There’s a small flash from the top of the motel. It’s gone before Landis can process what it is, but when Walker dips slightly to the left, and starts shouting some more, it’s easy to put the pieces together. Jenny’s firing on him. Now he just has to get the others’ attention.
Walker must have come to the same conclusion, because he backs off from the motel building, bobbing in the air a little farther away from it. There’s a metallic, rattling sound, as several nearby cars start to peel themselves off of the pavement and rotate lazily in the air around Walker, forming a set of three shields - or projectiles. The noise must be louder even closer to the motel, because the door to Room 103 swings open, and two figures hustle outside, closing it behind them.
“Time to go,” Landis says.
“I’ll keep an eye on Walker,” Jeremy promises, just as Naberius places a hand on Landis’s arm.
Everything in Landis’s field of vision stops, then stutters, the colors seeming to run together and bleed sideways in a large, errant brushstroke. The image grows more and more distorted, nearly fading completely to black before it begins to repair itself. As it does so, Landis blinks around himself to find that he is no longer sitting in Walker’s car, but instead, standing in a bathroom. A bathroom that, he confirms by cracking the door open, belongs to Room 103.
Austin is still tied to a chair in the center of the room as Jeremy said he would be, a cloth gag knotted behind his head. Landis creeps slowly towards him from behind. The sound of distant gunshots is more evident from inside the motel, as well as shouting and groaning metal outside. Hopefully Walker can hold his own for a few seconds longer.
“Austin,” Landis says softly, reaching the chair and starting to undo the knot of the gag. Austin startles slightly, but relaxes as he cranes his neck around to see who it is. “Naberius is here with me. We’re going to get you out of here.”
“Are you?” a voice that belongs to neither Austin nor Naberius asks.
Landis’s fingers slip and fumble over the knot, and he feels the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand on end. He whirls around, searching for the source of the voice. You’re just hearing things, he tells himself, straining to concentrate on the task at hand. It’s not like it hasn’t happened before. Jeremy said there were only two people in the room, plus Austin, so -
“So what if there was a third person he couldn’t see?”
A light chuckle comes from thin air, close enough to Landis’s ear to make him gasp. Icy cold fingers wrap around his throat from just in front of him, not squeezing tightly enough to choke, but teasingly pressing into his skin, a thumb rubbing up and down his Adam’s apple.
“You know,” his invisible assailant says casually, “it seems almost a shame to kill you now, with all the careful preparation you’ve clearly put into saving your friend, here. But I suppose it can’t be hel-”
The door to the bathroom opens with a sharp bang, and Naberius strides out, looking much angrier than Landis has ever seen him before.
“Do not,” Naberius says, “touch him.”
The hands around Landis’s neck twitch and withdraw, his assailant clearly startled. Landis tries to step away, but finds himself frozen, stuck fast to the floor. Austin’s motions in the chair sound like they’ve stopped, too, and more conspicuously, the sound of the fight outside has melted away into ringing silence.
The invisible person begins to clap, slow and cordial. As they do so, their form slowly materializes in between Naberius and Landis. The figure they cut is slight, about as skinny as Landis is, their head only coming up to Naberius’s chin at most. They’re dressed in slacks and an untucked, loose-fitting dress shirt with sleeves rolled up to their elbows, their mouth quirked up in a funny half-smile amidst the dusting of freckles that covers their face. They look exceedingly human - in fact, it takes Landis a second to notice the discrepancies. The small horns curled back from the stranger’s forehead into their stylishly disheveled hair. The inky black eyes, no pupils or iris, glittering out from behind a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.
“A time freezing spell,” the strange demon says, clasping their hands together in front of them and rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet. “How fun! I didn’t think you had it in you, Naberius!”
Naberius does nothing to disguise the look of disgust on his face. “Alloces. How unpleasant to see you again.”
“Oh, don’t say that.” The demon - Alloces - chuckles again. “We parted on good terms the last time, didn’t we?”
“I’d rather not bring up the past,” Naberius says flatly. “And I would thank you to step a little farther away from those humans, and explain to me what you’re doing here.”
Alloces grins, peeling back their lips on a set of fangs that look very nearly too big for their mouth, and flops down on the bed closest to the bathroom. Landis follows them with his eyes, deciding not to even try and strain against the spell - if it’s magic, struggling too much might really hurt him. He’s not willing to find out.
“I’m looking after Hall and Oates!” Alloces says. “My humans, you know. I gave them a very good deal on their contract. Only one hundred dead bodies, each, in exchange for some powers they’ve been finding exceedingly useful.”
One hundred dead bodies. Each. Landis feels a chill run through his body. Walker’s boss said their combined body count was somewhere near forty, so -
“It’s actually somewhere around fifty now. Maybe even more.” Alloces laughs. “They’ve only been contracted to me for about a year, and I have to say, I’m impressed with their progress.”
“Don’t be rude,” Naberius says tersely. Alloces gives him a questioning look, then widens their eyes in realization.
“Oh! Silly me.” They tap their forehead with a finger, turning their grin on Landis as if hoping he’ll find it funny. “I forget sometimes that I shouldn’t eavesdrop in mixed company.” Cupping a hand around their mouth, they lower their voice conspiratorially. “That’s why Naberius broke up with me, you know. Didn’t like that I could see -”
Naberius clears his throat, a little louder than necessary. “Alloces, if you or any of the humans here under your protection lay a hand on any of the humans under my protection, I will not hesitate to bring you before the Council.”
“On what terms?” Alloces asks, sitting up suddenly. There’s a look of outrage on their face that could either be genuine or play-acting, and Landis can’t tell which.
“Failing to negotiate a proper duel.” Naberius smiles thinly. “And attempting to kill a human who is under contract with me. While we’re at it, I’m sure there’s plenty of information you’ve told me in confidence that the Council would be extremely pleased to hear about.”
“I was wrong. You’re no fun at all.” Alloces rolls their eyes, once again looking at Landis as though he should be on their side. “But fine, I guess I’ll say that the same goes for you. Though I don’t think the ones out there,” they jab a thumb at the door, “are going to be too excited about a forced parley.”
“They don’t have to be excited about it,” Naberius says. “But I suppose we should go and collect them.”
He and Alloces begin walking towards the door, and Landis finds himself suddenly able to move again. Blinking, and touching his throat to ensure it isn’t bruised, he slowly turns back towards Austin and finishes undoing the gag.
“Thanks,” Austin says, a little hoarsely.
“What the hell was that all about?” Landis hisses, starting to pick at the ropes binding Austin to the chair. “I mean, did you understand any of that?”
“Nab saved your life,” Austin says, “and besides that, I dunno. Demon bullshit. Do you have your cell phone on you? I think I’ve got an idea.”